OSCE's representative for the Transnistrian Settlement Process is holding meetings in Chisinau and Tiraspol in a bid to invigorate the negotiating process

CHISINAU, October 10. /TASS/. Cord Meier-Klodt, Special Representative for the Transnistrian Settlement Process of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), is holding meetings in Chisinau and Tiraspol in a bid to invigorate the negotiating process between Moldova and the unrecognized republic of Transniestria, a spokesman for the OSCE mission in Chisinau told TASS on Monday.

Other topics for discussion include preparations for a meeting of OSCE foreign ministers due to be held in Germany’s Hamburg in December. On Monday, the OSCE envoy met with Transnistria’s chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatyev. Apart from that, according to the spokesman, Meier-Klodt is to meet with participants in talks in the Five Plus Two format [involving Moldova and Transnistria as parties to the conflict, the OSCE as a mediator, Russia and Ukraine as guarantors and the European Union and the United States as observers] to coordinate efforts of international partners towards resumption of the negotiating process.

On Tuesday, Meier-Klodt is expected to meet with Moldova’s chief negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister for reintegration Gheorghe Balan. The meeting will be followed by a joint news conference.

Transnistria, a largely Russian-speaking region, broke away from Moldova following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1992 and 1993, tensions erupted into a bloody armed conflict that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides.

The fratricidal war was stopped after a peace agreement was signed in Moscow in July of the same year and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict area. Negotiations on the conflict’s peaceful settlement known as the 5+2 format talks started after that.

For the moment, a joint peacekeeping force of the military contingents of Russia, Moldova and Transnistria as well as a group of military observers from Ukraine are maintaining peace and stability in the buffer security zone of the Transnistria conflict.